Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Twitter Ad Platform Lurks
All Things D’s Peter Kafka has unearthed what Twitter’s new ad platform will look like – it will look like Google’s according to Kafka’s sources. In addition to using 140 character or less ads, Kafka writes, “Twitter will work with ad agencies and buyers to seed the program, but plans on moving to a self-serve model like Google’s, down the road.” Read more.
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Agency DSPs And Publishers
Mediaweek’s Mike Shields covers last week’s Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting and says that “DSPs, such as VivaKi (Publicis) and Cadreon (IPG), were a hot topic” as publishers such as the one represented by Brian Quinn (vp/gm, ad sales for the Wall Street Journal Digital Network) are more interested in receiving phone calls then agency trading desk ad calls. Read more.
MyYearbook Displays Revenue
MyYearbook is making $20 million in revenue annually and continuing to grow according to Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, who covers yet another company that is making its revenues public. Ostrow writes, “Most of that comes from virtual currency within games that the company has built, with titles like Blind Date, Owned and Quiz.” Read more.
The Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) life is kickin’ it in an article in The New York Times. Reporters Ashlee Vance and Claire Cain Miller identify monthly stipends of up to $15k while EIR’s ruminate on the next big idea and “in return, the venture capital firm usually gets the first shot at financing the idea that emerges from this meditation.” Do you have the EIR mojo? Read more.
I Love Raising Money
Matt Mirales, founder and CEO of SpeakerText, does not mince word in a post on his personal blog (also reprinted on The Business Insider) saying, “In startups and war, SPEED KILLS. And let’s get real: Raising money is a gigantic waste of [rhymes with “rucking”] time. Each minute you spend hobnobbing with and strategizing RE: investors is a minute you don’t spend on product or customer development.” Read more unminced words including views on the NYC vs. Silicon Valley startup world.
Time Warp: Microsoft’s Monopoly Worries
From their “Microsoft On The Issues” blog, Dave Heiner, VP and Deputy General Counsel at Microsoft, says it’s time to look at the monopolistic practices of Google and jumps on the EU’s bandwagon which announced last week that it was investigating the Google’s competitive practices. Read more. The statement was so ironic that The Wall Street Journal considered it newsworthy. Read the story from Thomas Catan.
Visualizing Offline Vs. Online Purchases
Permuto has taken recent U.S. Census Bureau data and put it into its data visualization machine. Among the findings within the poster-worthy graphic, if you think people buy most of their “Food, Beer, Wine” in-store, you’d be wrong according to the Census Bureau’s data says Permuto. See it.
Yahoo! Aiming For Efficiency
“Yahoo’s strategy seems more like ‘ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…,'” says TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington who references a report late last week by Thomas Weisel analyst, Jordan Rohan, which paints a picture that the executive team at Yahoo! is still fixing the beast before feeding it through more acquisitions. Arrington quotes from Rohan’s report, ““Our recent discussion with Yahoo! management focused more on costs and efficiency than growth.” Read more.
4As Looks To Transform
The 4As conference is rolling in San Francisco and The New York Times’ Stuart Elliott covers the recent changes in the conference format which brings together the management and media conferences of years past. Conference organizers sense a need to address the ad agency model as the 4As put out an open call for presentations for the event which it’s calling “Transformation 2010.” Read about it.
The Art Of Closing
GRP Partners’ Mark Suster continues his startup advice with “a reminder for all entrepreneurs to remember to be careful about ‘deal drift'”on his personal blog. From Suster’s perspective, the art of the deal from the entrepreneur’s perspective comes down to closing the deal in a timely fashion. Or else. Read more.
One-To-One Pricing
Greg Linden points to a recent whitepaper by Google chief economist, Hal Varian, called “Computer Mediated Transactions.” (PDF) Linden thinks that something called “differential pricing” may make a return if Varian has his way where, quoting from Varian’s paper, “Not only content, but prices may also be personalized, leading to various forms of differential pricing.” Read Linden’s post.
Comfortable With Uncertainty
Former VC and current CEO coach, Jerry Colonna, says that if you’re going to lead, expect to never know exactly how things will turn out – and be good with that. Colonna pours on the anecdotes and closes with, “Maybe the hardest part of leadership—be it leading a company, a family, a relationship or simply your own life—is that often times you don’t know and you still have to act.” Read more.
DoubleClick Videos
Janine Gianfredi, a Google Agency Marketing Manager, announces on the AdWords Agency blog the availability of a range of videos for understanding Google ad products including how to measure the success of a display campaign. Gianfredi writes about DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) and says, “The DoubleClick video illustrates the relationship between click-through-rate (CTR) and creative size.” Is bigger better? Read the blog. See the videos.
Ad Network Revenues
IDG TechNetwork provided a glimpse into its revenue momentum in a release last week saying, the ad network “has grown revenue more than 300 percent from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010 (Oct.-Dec.).” Read more about the IDG progeny and recent momentum.
